CSR

Sustaining the planet along with people and profits has been our approach to business.

At Astec Lifesciences, we recognise Corporate Social Responsibility integral to the way we do our business and strive to engage, connect and uplift our community.

The Godrej Group has been at the forefront of philanthropic and social activities for several decades. 23 per cent of the shares of the Group's holding company, Godrej & Boyce, are held in a trust that invests back in initiatives that support the environment as well as improve the quality and availability of healthcare and education. As part of the trust, we continue to preserve and care for the largest privately managed belt of Mangroves in Mumbai, and run the Godrej Udayachal Schools and the Godrej Memorial Hospital for quality education and affordable healthcare among other initiatives.

In 2011, we took a closer look at our operations and impact, and engaged multiple stakeholders to understand opportunities, prioritise our initiatives and renew our focus. This led to the formulation of our sustainability strategy, ‘Good & Green' which is one of our four key imperatives for our business vision. As part of Good & Green, we aspire to:

Create a more employable Indian workforce by training 1 million people

Build a greener India by

Reducing specific energy consumption by 30%

Becoming carbon neutral

Becoming water positive

Sending zero waste to landfill

Sourcing 30% of total energy from renewable sources

Innovate for Good and Green products

Our Green goal is not only limited to making our operations environmental friendly, but also working with our communities and educational institutes to help them become more sustainable. We have already exceeded our performance in two of our green goals of reducing our specific energy consumption and increasing our renewable energy portfolio

In order to improve the earning potential of our trainees, we help build their core domain skills, as well as focus on entrepreneurship and life skills education, and provide post-training support. We are also strengthening our curriculum, digitizing it to offer uniform training, and focusing on ways to provide more value to a larger set of young people.

CSR programs of Astec Lifesciences

Astec's Flagship initiative, integrated rural livelihoods program: In line with the government's mission on doubling farmer incomes, Astec has committed to work with 1000+ rural households in 9 villages of Maharashtra, India. Our work involves building the skills and capacities of marginal and landless men and women farmers to diversify their income sources by improving their agricultural and animal husbandry practices. We are also in the process of creating various enterprise based solutions run by women on challenging issue like tacking waste management, agri value chain initiatives like flour mills etc. to increase women participation and improve incomes for the marginal, landless communities.

Community development initiatives: Astec works closely with communities around our manufacturing plants. In partnership with the locals, we primarily invest in education, water, sanitation initiatives across five schools covering 3 villages in and around our facilities.

Volunteering: We encourage our employees to volunteer their time through different programmes and initiatives. Some of our initiatives include the Godrej Global Volunteering Day, Brighter Giving, annual Good & Green carnival, volunteering around the World Environment Day, and the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in support of the Teach For India foundation, among others.

Good & Green

Our sustainability journey to build a more inclusive and greener world

We aim to create a more employable workforce, build a greener world, and innovate for 'good' and 'green' products

Where Are We Today

Over the years, we have aligned our initiatives with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, Government of India's social development programmes, and the needs of our local communities to deliver high-impact programmes. Our initiatives are broadly classified under:

GOODOur community CSR initiatives

GREENSustainability initiatives at our manufacturing plants

Compliance

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitments at Astec are aligned with the Godrej Group’s CSR Policy aimed towards fulfilling the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

In compliance with section 135, schedule VII of the Indian Companies Act, Astec annually commits 2% of its profits towards Corporate Social Responsibility towards critical needs identified by the company

The CSR Committee of Astec meets twice annually and comprises of the following members:

Mr. Vinod Malshe - Chairman of the Committee & Independent Director

Dr. Leena Raje - Member & Independent Director

Mr. Ashok Hiremath - Member & Managing Director

Mr. Balram Singh Yadav - Member and Director

CSR activities undertaken at Mahad

Addressing the hygiene and sanitation needs of village Bhirwadi in the absence of a public toilet a mobile toilet van was provided at the market place for villagers to prevent open defecation. The van is now managed by the panchayat and used by 50+ people every day.

Astec has set up a scholarship with SPRJ Kanayashala Trust in Ghatkopar, Mumbai towards the professional education of girls form below income families. The scholarship subsidizes their professional degree course so the girls can be meaningfully employed.

For a neighboring government school in Asanpoi, Astec reachedout by :

Constructing 4 toilets for boys and girls for good hygiene and sanitation

Provided a 500 Liter tank to store clean drinking water

Constructed a mesh wall compound for safety of around 100+ students

Astec helped women and children in Khalij village from travelling long stretches hours to fetch water by laying an 11 km long water pipeline connecting 3 villages, 350 households and 1 govt. school to the main pipeline thereby addressing the critical need of making water available for drinking and domestic purposes.

Astec undertook a detailed, participatory community needs assessment for understanding the primary and crucial needs of the communities surrounding the Astec factories.

Astec employees engage with students and teachers of Asanpoi and Bhirwadi govt. school on topics of health, hygiene and sanitation, career counselling and much more annually on 5th December each year - the Godrej Global Volunteering Day

Astec donated a garbage collection vehicle to the Asanpoi village panchayat as there is a critical issue of waste disposal in Mahad leading to foul smell and health issues.

Astec is also undertaking a community waste management project in the Asanpoi village covering 550 households in partnership with Samprun Earth ( a reputed organization working in Mumbai on waste management). The objective of the project is to create awareness about safe waste disposal, using waste by products (eg: compost ) with the aim of creating local livelihoods for the Asanpoi people.

Integrated Rural Livelihoods Program: 4Ws model

Astec is working with Anubhav Pratishthan Trust selected 9 villages with 4000+ house holds around its plants with an aim to help the poor. We aim to double house hold incomes for marginalized women farmers, schedule caste and tribal communities to diversify the source of the house hold incomes by building their skills and knowledge.